Repealing SB 252 atop governor candidate’s priority list

LOVELAND — Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, stressed to the agriculture industry this week that repealing a controversial rural renewable energy law would be his top priority next year.

"It's at the top of my list," Brophy said Wednesday afternoon during the Colorado Ag Classic's legislative panel, which featured discussions with Rep. Perry Buck, R-Greeley, Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, Rep. Randy Fischer, D-Fort Collins, and Alan Foutz from the office of U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.

SB 252 requires rural energy providers to produce 20 percent of their power through renewable sources by 2020. The bill was signed into law by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in June after making its way through the legislature.

Brophy's adamance Wednesday to take down the law was welcome news to the ag industry.

Farmers, ranchers and dairymen have long stressed that the new renewable energy standard will raise their energy costs and negatively impact their bottom lines.

"We have to stop this now … before the rural electricity co-ops start investing in the infrastructure to do this," Brophy said. "Once that happens, it's too late."

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In addressing the crowd, Brophy — who announced in July his decision to run for governor in 2014 — referred to a proposed bill coming from Saine that looks to gut SB 252.

Hickenlooper signed SB 252, even though he described the legislation as "imperfect." He said it represents the general direction he thinks Colorado should go, and in an executive order while signing the bill, he assigned a 12-person advisory committee — including representatives from environmental groups, agriculture and rural energy cooperatives — to hash out whether or not the law is feasible and how it should be implemented.

However, those committee members said they met only three times and released their final report as far back as September, concluding that the law's requirements are feasible, but the group made no formal recommendations because members did not come to a consensus.

The law includes a 2 percent rate cap for electricity users, but ag producers have stressed that, while that might not seem like much to the average consumer, it means a lot of money to those in agriculture. Producers, they say, already spend tens of thousands of dollars per month to run dairy operations, or as much as $150 per acre per year just to operate pumps to irrigate, and, if their input costs increase, they have little to no ability to up the price consumers pay for their products.

Also, one of the biggest issues with the law is that it doesn't include large hydroelectric projects, which accounts for a sizeable portion of the electricity produced by rural electricity cooperatives.